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In May 1972, William Millard began business as IMS Associates (IMS) in the area of computer consultancy and engineering, using his home as an office. By 1973, Millard began IMS Associates, Inc. Millard soon found capital for his business, and received several contracts, all for software.

In 1974, IMS was contacted by a client which wanted a "workstation system" that could do jobs for any General Motors new-car dealership. IMS planned a system including a terminal, small computer, printer, and special software. Five of these work stations were to have common access to a hard disk, which would be controlled by a small computer. Eventually product development was stopped. Millard and his chief engineer Joe Killian turned to the microprocessor. Intel had announced the 8080 chip, and compared to the 4004 to which IMS Associates had first used, the 8080 looked like a better idea. Full scale development of the IMSAI 8080 was begun, and by October 1975 an advertisement was placed in the magazinePopular Electronics, receiving positive reactions.[2]

IMS shipped the first IMSAI 8080 kits on December 16 1975.[3] In 1976, IMS was renamed to IMSAI Manufacturing Corporation because by then they were a manufacturing company, not a consultancy one. By October 1979 the IMSAI corporation had gone bankrupt, and the 'IMSAI' trademark was acquired by Thomas "Todd" Fischer and Nancy Freitas (former early employees of IMS Associates), who continued manufacturing the computers under the IMSAI name as a division of Fischer-Freitas Co. Support for early IMSAI systems continues to this day.

An IMSAI 8080 and an acoustic coupler type modem were among the hacking tools used by the main character in the 1983 movie WarGames. However, even by 1983 the acoustic coupler was out of date. It was selected over a more modern model so that the audience would immediately recognize it as the device that connected to the telephone.

↑Littman, Jonathan (1987"). Once Upon a Time in ComputerLand: The Amazing, Billion-Dollar Tale of Bill Millard. Los Angeles: Price Stern Sloan. pp. 18. ISBN0-89586-502-5. "Later that day, December 16 [1975], United Parcel Service picked up the first shipment of 50 IMS computer kits for delivery to customers."